SASCHA WIL­SON

Scores of chil­dren, ac­com­pa­nied by their par­ents, showed up at the Pfiz­er vac­ci­na­tion site at the MIC Pleas­antville Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre at Pleas­antville, to­day, shel­ter­ing from the rain un­der their um­brel­las as they lined up out­side the fa­cil­i­ty, wait­ing their turn. 

To­day is the first day of the vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve spear­head­ed by the Min­istry of Health and Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for chil­dren be­tween the ages of 12 and 18 years. The vac­cines are be­ing of­fered at 14 sites across the coun­try via an ap­point­ment sys­tem. On­ly one par­ent or guardian is al­lowed to ac­com­pa­ny their child.

At the Pleas­antville site, there is a po­lice pres­ence en­sur­ing com­pli­ance with the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

Michelle Par­son's chil­dren Kai-Ann, Mick­el and Mick­yle were among the first to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

"I con­sid­ered it very im­por­tant to bring my chil­dren to be vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 virus," said Par­son. 

Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege stu­dent, Vic­tor Ba­boolal, felt ac­com­plished hav­ing re­ceived his first jab of the Pfiz­er vac­cine. He said he got up as ear­ly as 4 am and was "not re­al­ly scared" about get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed.

"It did not hurt at all, it just felt like a lit­tle ants bite," he said.

An­oth­er par­ent, Sta­cy Ryan, got to the fa­cil­i­ty around 6:30 am with her son.  How­ev­er, she com­plained that there was no area to shel­ter from the rain.

"When we got there, they had a long line. It was wrap­ping around the fa­cil­i­ty to the out­side, but the rain came down very heavy and there was ab­solute­ly no ac­com­mo­da­tion for the per­sons stand­ing in the rain. It was even flood­ing, she told Guardian Me­dia.

She added: "The on­ly is­sue we had would have been hav­ing to stand in the rain for 45 min­utes to an hour be­fore be­ing able to ac­cess the fa­cil­i­ty. Out­side of that, when you got in the process was pret­ty smooth. The staff, they were very friend­ly." 

Sta­cy Ryan sug­gest­ed that they put in place a hold­ing bay so that peo­ple will not be im­pact­ed by the se­vere weath­er con­di­tions. She al­so sug­gest­ed that the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) may have been a more suit­able site for the vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve.

"The park­ing, it would have been able to ac­com­mo­date.  The traf­fic con­ges­tion on the out­side this morn­ing was ab­solute­ly hor­ri­ble, and it (SAPA) has more ac­com­mo­da­tion to see per­sons. They have the­atres, hold­ing bay, so that per­sons will not be out­side stand­ing in the rain. So, I un­der­stand try­ing to get the process ef­fect­ed, but this was not the wis­est choice for a vac­ci­na­tion cen­tre be­cause as you can see, par­ents are com­ing out in num­bers to get their chil­dren vac­ci­nat­ed," she said.

Ryan said there should have been an ad­di­tion­al site in south be­cause there is on­ly one site in San Fer­nan­do and an­oth­er in La Brea.

"I do think adding one more fa­cil­i­ty in San Fer­nan­do area would ac­tu­al­ly help the process," she added.

An­oth­er par­ent, Adri­an Agard of Corinth Hills, Ste Madeleine, said he was hap­py that his daugh­ter was vac­ci­nat­ed and is en­sur­ing that his en­tire fam­i­ly is pro­tect­ed against the COVID-19 virus.

He said when the rain came, they wait­ed in their car un­til it eased up.

Agard al­so re­port­ed that the vac­ci­na­tion site staff was pro­fes­sion­al and they ex­pe­ri­enced no bumps or hic­cups.